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Hillary Rodham Clinton speaks at a women’s equality event in New York. (Don Emmert, AFP/Getty Images)
Hillary Rodham Clinton’s standing with women will give her a “decided advantage” in the 2016 presidential race, according to a new Gallup Poll.
Nearly 6 in 10 women, or 56%, have a favorable opinion of Clinton — the highest for any Democrat or Republican considering a White House bid. That compares to 44% of men who rate her favorably.
Vice President Biden runs a distant second (41%) among women, while Jeb Bush is 24 percentage points behind Clinton.
A gender gap has existed in every presidential election since 1980. Women were the majority of voters in the 2012 presidential election, and President Obama won 55% of their votes while Mitt Romney garnered 44%.
(Graphic by Gallup Poll)
Clinton’s recent speeches on gender equity and women’s issues make clear she intends to make the topics central to her all-but-declared 2016 campaign. There is also the allure of Clinton potentially becoming the first female<span style="color: Red;">*</span>president —<span style="color: Red;">*</span>something she only alluded to when she conceded the Democratic nomination to Obama.
Jeffrey Jones, managing editor of Gallup, said Clinton’s ratings in the latest poll shows improvement from a similar survey taken a year before she ran for president in 2008. In that 2007 poll, Clinton’s 60% favorable rating was matched by Rudy Giuliani — then the leading GOP presidential contender —<span style="color: Red;">*</span>with Barack Obama, John McCain and John Edwards not too far behind.
“If the Democratic Party nominates her as their candidate and Americans elect her president, Clinton’s bedrock of support among women would likely play a substantial role in that achievement,” Jones said. “To defeat Clinton, her challengers from either party would have to weaken her appeal to women as much as possible and develop an equally strong or stronger advantage among men.”
Jones notes that is exactly what happened in the 2008 Democratic primaries: Clinton kept her advantage among women, but Obama had “an even larger advantage” among men.
Gallup surveyed 1,522 adults March 2-4. The error margin is +/- 3 percentage points. The sample of 770 women has an error margin of +/- 4 points.
(Graphic by Gallup Poll)
Gallup poll, gender gap, Hillary Rodham Clinton, women voters, Polls<span style="color: Red;">*</span>
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